The invention relates to a coupling piece for releasably connecting corner fittings of adjacent containers, especially of containers stacked on top of one another on board of ships.
Coupling pieces of the type discussed here are usually called "twistlocks" in the technical jargon. They are mainly used during the transport of containers on board of ships. The coupling pieces are supposed to reliably prevent shifts of the containers relative to the ship on the one hand and relative to one another on the other hand.
In order to minimize the lay time of the ships caused by loading and discharging the containers, coupling pieces of the afore-mentioned kind have been created which work semi-automatically, so that only a minimal amount of manual labor for locking and releasing the coupling pieces is needed.
A semi-automatic coupling piece is is disclosed in DE-OS 37 10 419. The locking bolt in DE-OS 37 10 419 can be operated manually as well as by means of a prestressed spring. The known coupling piece has thus only to be manually connected to a container by prelocking it thereon which at the same time prestresses the spring. After this manual prelocking, the containers which are to be connected are placed on top of one another and then the coupling piece is automatically locked by the prestressed spring.
This known coupling piece requires a spring mechanism and a pivotable actuating lever which on the one hand are complicated to assemble and on the other hand necessitate a housing formed of several parts. Moreover, the spring mechanism and the pivotable actuating lever can lead to malfunctions of the known coupling piece.